Writer of YA, mainstream, and contemporary fiction. Shackled by RSIs. Published five stories anyway. Still writing. Admin at AlzAuthors, cross-blogging weekly to raise awareness of Alzheimer's and the dementias. Eclectic reader and book promoter. Follow my adventures in publishing.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Blog Tour: Well Kept Secrets, by Liza O'Connor

The telephone may be the most popular and beloved
product ever built.

The need for a telephone was so vast, that an
amazing amount of inventors set about inventing it. Beginning in 1854, the
telephone existed in some form and was re-invented over and over for the next
twenty to thirty years. Actually, we are still reinventing it…

Here are some of the inventors of phones: Charles
Bourseul, Johanne Phillipe Reis, Antonio Meucci, Elisha Grey, and Alexander
Graham Bell. All these men invented phones, but most didn’t have the ability to
market and gain financial supporters, nevertheless pay the patent fees.

The need for instantaneous communication between
people at a distance from one another was fully recognized. It’s why we had
telegraphs. But if we could actually send words over the line, and actually
speak to the person we wished…That would be a huge improvement. A
change-the-world improvement.

In the worlds of patents, only one person or company
could be declared the owner of a specific device. By that I don’t mean ‘the
telephone’ but all the components of a particular telephone and how they work
together to transmit voice. And not surprising, there are hundreds of ways to reach
the same end results. Thus, explaining the myriad of inventors of the
telephone.

If Alex’s domineering father-in-law had been hit by a
newly invented automobile and died, Alexander Bell would NOT have been the
father of telephony. But the
bullying-father-in law lived, so Alexander Bell and Elisha Grey submitted
patents on the same day. Elisha’s arrived first, so it was further down in the
pile and thus Alexander’s patent was read first and granted. Yes, Fate is that
fickle. Elisha Grey, by all rights, should have been awarded the patent.

That’s how important telephones were to the survival
of humans. Fate chose the most likely to succeed, but still it had a backup
ready, in case Alexander failed to get the job done. Fate had done everything
it could to ensure Alexander created the phone, specifically giving him the
meanest-father-in-law ever, who stopped him from working on other inventions
and focus on the phone. I think Fate favored Alexander because his
father-in-law had the money, connections, and forcefulness to make telephones
become a reality. And given the lawsuits on patent infringement that followed,
without said father-in-law (who was a lawyer), Alexander would have probably
given up and worked on other inventions, like his compost toilet instead.

So who actually invented the telephone? Maybe Fate
deserves the credit. It had to manipulate a great deal to ensure Bell came
through.

In England, the telegraph authorities insisted a
telephone was technically a telegraph and thus under their purview. They then
set about to slow its growth with onerous regulations. By 1894, when Well Kept
Secrets takes place, the regulations had changed and the telephone business was
finally able to grow. Not surprisingly, the parliament and its members and
other related buildings, such as Scotland Yard, acquired telephones first,
along with many of the upper class.

However, Xavier Thorn refuses to have a phone in his
place of business. He finds clients lie enough when they sit before him, where
he can catch their lies by their ‘tells.’ If he had a phone, he’d never be able
to bully a single true word out of any of them.

The great Victorian sleuth Xavier Thorn and his
partner Vic Hamilton take a case close to home. Their youngest staff member,
L’il Pete, discovers his mother murdered in the alley. Jacko is called up from
the country to assist in solving the crime. The good woman’s murder proves to
be tangled up with a much larger and shocking list of crimes perpetrated by a
powerful man who may truly be above the law. Making matters more complex: Vic
discovers her recent weight gain may be the result of a condition that could
destroy her life and everything she loves.

(To set the
scene: Xavier sent Tubs to kidnap the butler of a Minister of Parliament, so he
could ask the fellow why he had tried to kill him earlier in the day. A
perfectly reasonable thing to do, yet the Parliament Minister and his wife show
up at six in the morning, demanding the return of their butler.)

Catherine held her ground. “I can read my servant
like a book. I wish to observe the interrogation to make up my own mind to his
guilt or innocence.”

“Fine, I’m going to call Scotland Yard!” Meridan
replied.

Xavier gave Catherine instructions to the basement.
“Please don’t scream upon sight of Tubs. It hurts his feelings.”

With a soft snort, she hurried from the room.

Meridan was a bit slower, this early in the morning,
but eventually Xavier’s words sunk in. “Tubs? You’re sending my wife into the
company of a mass murdering giant?”

“I didn’t send her. She demanded to go, and you let her. But for the record, Tubs
only does what he’s told, so he rarely murders now that he works for me.”
Xavier pasted a smile on his face.

“And he’s questioning my butler?”

“Yes, he’s very good at getting information out of
people. Most start talking upon sight of him, or once they regain use of their
vocal chords.”

Liza O’Connor was raised badly by feral cats,
left the South/Midwest and wandered off to find nicer people on the east coast.
There she worked for the meanest man on Wall Street, while her psychotic
husband tried to kill her three times. (So much for finding nicer people.) Then
one day she declared enough, got a better job, divorced her husband, and fell
in love with her new life where people behaved normally. But all those bad
behaviors have given her lots of fodder for her humorous romances. Please buy
these books, because otherwise, she’ll become grumpy and write troubled novels
instead. They will likely traumatize you.

You have been warned.

Mostly humorous
books by Liza:

Ghost Lover—Two British brothers fall in love with the
same young woman. Ancestral ghost is called in to fix the situation. And
there’s a ghost cat that roams about the book as well. (Humorous Contemporary
Romance)

The Missing Partner — Opps! The greatest sleuth in Victorian
England goes missing, leaving Vic to rescue him, a suffragette, and about 100
servants. Not to mention an eviscerating cat. Yes, let’s not mention the cat.

A Right to Love— A romantic detour for Jacko. Want to see how amply rewarded
Jacko was when he & Vic save an old woman from Bedlam?

The Mesmerist— The Mesmerist can control people from afar and make them murder for
her. Worse yet, Xavier Thorn has fallen under her spell.

Well
Kept Secrets— L’il Pete’s mum is murdered, and
discovering who & why reveals a great many secrets.